


Five Times Steve Saw the Old Bucky Barnes (Five Times the Team Saw the Old Steve Rogers)

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Banter, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Clint Likes Sugar, Codependency, Flawed!Steve, Gen, Invasion of Privacy, M/M, Natasha is Indiscreet, Not Steve-Bashing Just Portraying him as Human, Therapy, Trash Talk, battles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 02:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1671818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-CA2, Bucky joins the Avengers. It takes a while for Bucky to feel like his old self, but there are times when it feels like the 40's all over again. </p><p>Bucky/Steve or Bucky&Steve friendship, with the team seeing a new side of Steve as he and Bucky build back their friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Steve Saw the Old Bucky Barnes (Five Times the Team Saw the Old Steve Rogers)

Bucky had been on the team for months, had proven himself in battle again and again. But in everyday life, the team was still a little bit wary. He joked, flirted, made smalltalk, did everything a person was supposed to do and usually a lot more normally than the rest of the team, but his eyes, his facial expressions, were still blank, as if he were still learning to play human. Steve was just happy to have him back, and so Tony, Coulson, and Sam did their best to accept him. Natasha knew what it was like to have everyone think you’re still a killing machine because you’re not bubbly enough (and where Natasha believed, so did Clint). Bruce was taking a break and travelling, and Thor was home, but they knew that Bruce would be laid back about the integration of the Winter Soldier when he came back, and Thor was always happy to meet a brother in arms. And no one could argue that Bucky wasn’t a tremendous asset in a fight – close to Steve’s power, but with Natasha’s relentlessness.

After one battle, in which they all came out alive but scraped up, they headed back to the Tower to clean up before Tony made them go out to celebrate their victory.

Tony, Clint, and Bucky were waiting in the lobby for the others when Steve came down. The side of his face was still scraped up from the long fall he took after an alien punched him off a building.

“Nice face,” Bucky said.

“Fuck off,” Steve answered, smiling a little at the teasing.

“No, really. That was a stunning display of competence, falling off a roof like that.”

“Hey,” Clint said; he’d fallen off his fair share of roofs. 

Steve replied to Bucky, “I could fall off a hundred buildings and my hair still wouldn’t look like a rat and a cockroach making out on my head.”

Bucky said, “Yeah, whoever told you your haircut looks good in this century was pranking you. You look like a frat boy searching for someone to give him a beer enema.”

Steve did his best not to grin. “Did you hit your head? Because I think all that bundled up stupid in there must have gotten loose.”

“You’re still a punk,” Bucky said, and they both smiled.

Clint whispered to Tony, “I had no idea Captain America was this bitchy.”

Tony whispered back, “I know, it’s awesome. We’ll get JARVIS to play it back for the rest of the team later.”

\--

“So what makes you happy?” Sam asked Bucky.

“Not murdering people. Innocent people, anyway.” He gave Sam a little smirk for half a second.

Sam raised an eyebrow. He had dealt with far more passive aggressive answers than that at his job. 

“That’s a good start. But as that part gets easier, you’ll want to think about other things that make you happy,” Sam said.

Bucky grimaced and nodded, then turned to Steve. “How did you answer that question?”

Steve said, “I said that I don’t know.”

Bucky looked at Sam. “I didn’t realize I could just say ‘I don’t know.’ That kind of sounds like cheating to me.”

Steve elbowed him, and Sam smiled. It was nice to see them joking around.

“Hey, what about art?” Bucky asked Steve then.

Steve shrugged. “I draw. Sometimes.”

“You do?” Sam said, wondering how Steve had kept it a secret from him.

“He’s really good,” Bucky said to Sam, then turned back to Steve, “You could go back to art school?”

“Art school?” Sam asked. “That’s one thing the history books left out.”

“Fake name,” Steve said, “On the fake check I used to start taking classes. A couple of months in, I couldn’t make any more excuses for why the account was empty and I had to leave.” 

“Captain America committed fraud. To go to art school,” Sam said, furrowing his eyebrow.

“It was the Depression. It was Brooklyn. We did what we had to,” Bucky said pointedly.

“Got it,” Sam said.

“It was fun being there. Learned a lot,” Steve said fondly.

Bucky smiled sadly. “I always regretted I didn’t have enough money to loan you tuition.”

Steve’s forehead creased. “What do you mean? It was never _your_ job to put me through art school.”

Bucky looked at him, a little blank. “I know. It’s just… you were really good at art.”

“So maybe Steve can take one art class. Just to see if he likes it,” Sam suggested.

Bucky looked at Steve expectantly, and Steve just sighed and nodded, clearly outnumbered.

“And what was Bucky good at?” Sam asked Steve, mostly out of curiosity.

“Everything except art. It was incredibly annoying.”

“I _was_ pretty incredible,” Bucky said.

“And so modest.”

“More modest than anyone in the world.”

Steve turned back to Sam. “Hey, you know what Bucky was good at? Convincing people to compromise their ideas about sexual morality.”

“I think the last 70 years have proven that I was right all along about sexual propriety being stupid,” Bucky said. “And I’m grateful there are so many people today who agree with me.”

Steve rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. He seemed almost like he was… pouting. Sam realized it was the same angry look Steve got when Bucky would flirt shamelessly with Sharon or Lillian.

“So we found you something that makes you happy. The sexual revolution,” Sam said with a smile.

Bucky smirked at Steve. “Yep. I guess that’s something.”

\--

“Captain, please try to understand that we need to wait for reinforcements,” Coulson said, calmly but firmly.

“If they get away, it’s on us,” Steve said, putting on his helmet.

“I understand that you feel a sense of responsibility,” Coulson said.

“I concur that it would be suicidal to go in before backup arrives,” Natasha said pointedly.

Steve frowned. “They have an underground tunnel. They could escape at any time. They could have spotted us and already be evacuating. You and Romanov stay here, but I’ll go in. I need to at least attempt--”

“Nobody likes killing HYDRA agents more than I do,” Bucky said. “But we’re not going in like idiots. Unless you’ve trademarked being an idiot.”

Steve looked much less amused than when Bucky usually busted his chops.

“I’m basing the decision on our tactical needs,” Steve countered. “And you’ve never questioned my orders in the field.”

Bucky tilted his head. “And you’ve never pulled rank like that. Or implied that you don’t welcome disagreement.”

Steve frowned, loosened his shoulders. “You think I’m making decisions based on my feelings?”

“I think you’ve still got the biggest chip on your shoulder in all of Brooklyn,” Bucky said. 

“I don’t--”

“Yeah. You’re not acting anything like a guy with something to prove,” Bucky said.

Coulson looked at Steve, watched the grimace slowly fade into acknowledgment, and he realized suddenly that despite all his efforts to be objective in the field, to see a man warts and all instead of the hero and myth, he still hadn’t seen this basic fact about Steve: he was a pissed off kid with, yes, a giant chip on his shoulder. Coulson had always been good at recognizing this: he saw it in Clint, in May, in all his best agents, and always knew how to deal with it. But even though he could see Steve’s flaws -- his stubbornness, his insistence that he was always right -- he had never quite seen past the icon to recognize that Steve was painfully like so many other agents he had worked with before.

Steve sighed, and looked at Natasha, Coulson, and Bucky. “Fine. We’ll wait until Bruce gets here.”

“I really like that Bruce guy,” Bucky said approvingly.

“He doesn’t like you,” Steve grumbled.

“Bruce likes you just fine,” Natasha said, amused. “Otherwise the Other Guy would have crushed you by now.”

“I could totally take him,” Bucky said.

Coulson sighed. “Let’s not ever find out.”

\--

Natasha listened as Steve talked to Sam; Steve didn’t understand why Bucky never wanted to go to meetings with Sam. 

Sam noted, delicately, that Bucky wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about some things in front of one of Steve’s friends. Steve didn’t seem to understand what Sam was implying; that Bucky needed to talk to someone about Steve.

Luckily, Bucky was regularly attending the mandated SHIELD therapy sessions. Some people would be uncomfortable monitoring the private recordings of conversations between a therapist and patient, but Natasha was comfortable with everything.

Besides, Fury asked her personally to make sure that this whole Bucky situation didn’t go bad, and Natasha wasn’t about to fail. 

Listening to Bucky struggle, often futilely, to talk about decades of programming made Natasha sympathize more than she had initially wanted to. She was still a little wary, remnants of years fearing an unknowable enemy, but hearing Bucky talk about his burgeoning memories, his guilt, his sense that he will never be able to clean the blood on his hands, made Natasha believe that he could be – and should be – part of the team. 

She knew she was identifying more than she should. But her investment was helping her build a thorough profile, and that was her job.

It was one session in particular, though, that made Natasha wonder if Bucky was really better off being part of the team. Bucky was talking to his therapist about his decision to enlist, and Natasha listened to the recording three times.  
 _  
“It felt selfish.”_

_“It felt selfish to serve your country.”_

_“Not… exactly. I mean a lot of us back then wanted to do our duty. But it felt… wrong, somehow. I kept waiting for Steve to trick some army doctor into letting him in, so we could go to Europe together. But eventually, I just… couldn’t wait. I felt it was wrong to sit at home when they needed me to fight. And part of me was hoping that if I left, Steve would figure out that it just wasn’t going to happen. Which was silly – I mean I know Steve way better than to think he’d ever give up on anything, much less being in the war.”_

_“You thought it was selfish to do something that wasn’t about Steve?”_

_Bucky sighed. “I know what you’re thinking.”_

_“What’s that?”_

_“Some shrink stuff,” Bucky said, voice nonchalant._

_The therapist sighed. “So do you think you’ve changed much since then?”_

_“…I don’t know. I mean, it’s complicated. I was always so worried that Steve needed me. But the one time I don’t stick around to protect Steve, he ends up superpowered and I end up being tortured.”_

_“How did you cope with that experience at the time?”_

_“Didn’t. I mean, the army offered me a ticket home. Injuries, above and beyond, and so on. But then Steve was forming the Commandos.”_

_“Did you consider saying no to Steve?”_

_“No.”_

_“Hm.”_

_“Don’t say ‘Hm.’ It was a war. He was a great leader, just like I always knew he could be. You can’t look at what we accomplished and say that it was the wrong choice.”_

_“Nobody’s denying the value of your service, Bucky.”_

_“Fine.”_

_“So how did you deal with the aftereffects of the torture at the time?”_

_“Just did. I mean, we always had someone to fight. So at least we were distracted.”_

_“That doesn’t sound like coping.”_

_“Yeah, I said I didn’t cope. What more do you want?”_

_“It’s about what you want.”_

_“Another shrink answer.”_

_“Well, what do you expect from a shrink?”_

_Bucky actually laughed at that._

_“Okay,” Bucky said. “I mean. I know what you’re asking. If I still think Steve needs me to protect him. And you know, he’s strong and smart and… I mean, nobody’s better.”_

_“But?”_

_“But. I don’t think…. I don’t get the impression that he was doing all that well before I came back.”_

_“You think that it was hard for him when he was still searching for you?”_

_“From everything I gather, he hasn’t been doing well since he woke up from the ice. And who can blame him, with everything?”_

_“And have you been doing well. Since waking up?”_

_Bucky sighed. “You can tell your bosses that I don’t have homicidal tendencies toward anyone but HYDRA and possibly those asshole aliens who keep showing up. Not Thor, the ones who fuck everything up.”_

_“I’m not evaluating you. I’m here to assist you. And you avoided the question of whether you’re doing well.”_

_“Well as can be expected.”_

_“That’s fine. That’s very reasonable. Do you think that you’re doing better since joining the Avengers?”_

_“I think that this is the right place for me.”_

_“That’s not exactly a yes.”_

_“… I think our time’s up, doc.”_

 

Natasha takes a while to make a decision, then tells Steve: “I’m not sure Bucky wants to be here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think he’s staying here because he doesn’t want to say no to you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Steve said with an annoyed tone, but Natasha noticed that he swallowed as if nervous.

“I don’t think it’s good for him.”

“You just don’t want him here because of who he used to be,” Steve answered, nodding toward her scar.

“And I would have every right to think that if that were true. But it’s not. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t like being in battle. Maybe it’s too much social interaction all at once. Or maybe….”

“What?”

“Maybe he’s focused on you and he needs to work on himself.”

“Where the hell are you getting this, Natasha?” Steve said.

She paused.

“What, did you bug his room or something?”

“Something.”

Steve gritted his teeth. “You’re wrong. Bucky wouldn’t lie to me.” 

He walked away, and Natasha didn’t follow.

Later that night, Steve went up into Bucky’s room, the two of them sitting next to each other, hip to hip, on Bucky’s bed. 

Steve looked down. “You know, you only have to be here if you want to be, Buck.”

“What are you talking about?” Bucky asked.

“Just… I realized that I never really asked you if you wanted to join. I just assumed that you would. I think maybe I was being kind of an ass.”

“Of course I wanted to join. You don’t think I’d let you go into battle without me, do you? I mean, let’s face it, you’re kind of a dumbass.”

“I’m serious, Bucky. If you wanted to… go….” Steve said, voice pained, “That would be, you know… up to you. I’d support you.”

“Yeah, I know, shithead. But you’ve had years to be a fuckup on your own, and now it’s time for us to be fuckups together again.” He raised an eyebrow, staring into Steve’s eyes, brooking no challenge.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, punk. I’m sure.” And Bucky leaned over, slowly, nonthreateningly, to give Steve a hug, clapping him lightly on the back.

Steve tried not to tear up; it was the first time since Bucky returned that they had hugged.

“Now shut up about this, okay?” Bucky said, smiling as he wiped a tear off Steve’s cheek.

“Yeah. Anything you say, Buck.”

\--

“The bakery sent over a cake to say thank you for saving the city again,” Clint said, more excited than he should be about a rectangle of sugar. Sam looked at the cake, chocolate with white frosting covered in pink flowers; it did look good.

“The cake says Happy Anniversary,” Bruce noted.

“So the battle made a lot of people cancel their anniversary parties. It’s still free cake,” Clint pointed out, and Sam and Bruce both smiled.

“Steve and Bucky took the key role by dismantling the explosives, so they should have to cut and plate,” Clint said, as if the logic were obvious.

“I think we all played ‘key roles,’” Tony mumbled.

Steve smiled at Bucky and said, “Do you want to?”

They stood at the large sheet cake and Steve was starting to cut the cake. Suddenly, Bucky grabbed a handful of pink and white frosting and smeared it across Steve’s face, faster than even Steve’s reflexes could dodge.

Just as the whole team started to crack up laughing, Steve grabbed a chunk of cake and rubbed it in Bucky’s hair, and soon the two men were wrestling on the floor. They looked each other in the eye then and at the same time they both said, “Mrs. Yates’ shop!” and started laughing uncontrollably at some memory of a joke that only the two understood.

The team watched them, smiling. 

“I’ve never seen a grin that big on Steve’s face,” Tony said. “Not once.”

Sam whispered to Natasha, “I guess we finally got an answer to what makes Steve happy,” and she nodded in return.

“You know what would make me happy?” Clint said. “If those two dudes could roll around somewhere else and let the rest of us get to the cake.”

Steve and Bucky kept laughing.

**Author's Note:**

> For Ash, for the prompt "Despite it all..."


End file.
